Ep. 379 - The War On Facts
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Summary
The Baltimore Ravens destroyed the Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football, and Pete Buttigieg is in hot water for his comments about minority kids in the education system. Plus, a new article from The Root calling him a lying MF.
Transcript
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Okay, welcome to the show, everybody. Feeling pretty good today, personally. My Baltimore
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Ravens demolished the Rams last night on Monday Night Football. I don't know if you watched
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that. And you know, I was thinking last night as I was watching it all unfold, on top of
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everything else, I love how the Ravens are named after an Edgar Allan Poe poem, because
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Poe lived in Baltimore, died in Baltimore. He also married his 13-year-old cousin in
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Baltimore, which we don't really talk about that part of it, that part we leave to the
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side. But the point is that Baltimore Raven refers obviously to the poem, the Raven, which
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is why their mascots, the Raven mascots, are named Edgar Allan and Poe, so it's very subtle.
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And I remember when the Ravens came to Baltimore in 1995, when we stole the team from Cleveland,
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which was fine, because our team had been stolen by Indianapolis in the 80s, and so we turned
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around and stole our team from Cleveland. And you know, fair is fair. If you get something
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stolen, you could steal from the next person. That's the way it goes in America. And anyway,
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so there was a poll, a vote, to see, you know, what we would name the new team, and everybody
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in this city was voting. And as a kid at the time, I wanted something like the dragons, you
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know, something fierce, like the dragons, or the butchers, the Baltimore butchers, that would
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have been good. But the nerds wanted a 19th century literary reference, and they won. And
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I was mad at the time, but I appreciate it now, because now that I'm older and I'm a
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nerd myself, I really appreciate the literary reference every time I watch football. Great
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stuff. Okay, speaking of nerds, Pete Buttigieg, he's a nerd, which I mean as a compliment. Smart
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guy, obviously. Rhodes Scholar. I don't know if you heard about the fact that he's a Rhodes
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Scholar. We're only reminded of that every time he does a debate. But probably the most
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talented politician the Democrats have right now. And that, I don't, that's not, that's
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half a compliment and half an insult. I think he's wrong about everything. I also think that
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he's cynical and manipulative, especially in how he slanders Christians while pretending
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to be one. So I'm not a fan of his by any stretch of the imagination. But he is smart
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and he's good at what he does as a political candidate. But he was trending on Twitter this
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morning in a not so positive way. In fact, the phrase, Pete Buttigieg is a lying MF was
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trending. And that's about as bad of a trend as you can get, I think, as a political candidate.
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That's the title of an article in The Root. And it's an article that just, you know,
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blasts away at Buttigieg, calling him a lying mother blank, basically painting him as nothing
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more than a lucky, privileged, spoiled, lying brat, essentially, and taking issue. And this,
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of course, is from the left. This is an attack on him from the left, taking issue mainly with
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something that he said about, about, something he said about eight years ago while he was running
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for mayor of South Bend. And he was talking about disadvantaged kids and the education system.
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And anyway, they're taking issue with what he said. And take a listen to it right here.
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You know, the kids need to see evidence that education is going to work for them, right?
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Yeah, because you're motivated because you believe that at the end of your educational
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process, there's a reward, there's a stable life, there's a job. And there are a lot of
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kids, especially the lower income minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven't seen
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it work. There isn't somebody they know personally who testifies to the value of education.
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That's what this writer at The Root is mad about. And that's what makes him a lying MF.
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A bunch of leftists are also mad, it seems. Now, the question is, what was wrong with what
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he said? You know, far be it for me to defend Buttigieg, but what did he say that was wrong
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there? What's the wrong part of that? Well, this guy at The Root says that the problem is
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not about bad role models, despite what Buttigieg claims. It's not a lack of role models. It's
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about minority neighborhoods being neglected, underfunded, schools in the inner city being
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underfunded, and racism, and all of these external circumstances, you see. And the thing
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with Buttigieg is he just got lucky, and that's why he's been successful. And so for him to
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sit there in judgment is racist and wrong, and it's deceptive. But of course, that's all
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nonsense. The big advantage that Buttigieg had is that he had a mother and father growing
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up. Okay, that is a big advantage. That's not luck, though. That's not a roll of the
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dice. The mother and father chose, decided to be present. That's a choice they made. It's
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not luck. The point is that in the inner city, you're talking about 70 or 80 percent of the
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kids don't have a dad in the picture. 70 or 80 percent. Now, of course, that's going to
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have an enormous impact. Of course, that's going to mean a dearth of male role models,
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especially for boys who have a special need for male role models in their lives. They need
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a man to show them how to be a man. And it's much easier and better and more effective
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if you have that example in your life that you can look to. It's kind of the show-don't-tell
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thing. You could tell kids all day long this is how you're supposed to act, but you need
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someone there to show you how to act, someone that they can emulate. Now, this is all really
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obvious, and to deny it is madness. It's not bad luck. Fathers abandoning their families
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are not unlucky, okay, unless they died. But if they're still alive and they've abandoned
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their families, they chose to do that. They chose not to be there for their kids. Or if
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they're in prison or something, they chose to commit a crime. It's not luck. It's a choice
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made by those fathers. So you've got a huge amount of men in the inner city who conceive
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children and then don't stick around to raise them. That is a statistical reality. The article
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says, just reading a little bit from this article in the root, it says, it proves men like him,
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Buttigieg, are more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of Negro neighborhoods
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needing more role models and briefcase carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun
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and see the blinding light of racism. Get-along moderates would rather make crap up out of whole
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cloth than wade into the waters of reality. Pete Buttigieg doesn't want to change anything. He just
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wants to be something. This is not just a lie of omission. It is a dangerous precedent.
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This is why institutional inequality persists, not because of white hoods and racial slurs.
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It is because this insidious double talk erases the problem by camouflaging it because it is painted
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as a problem of black lethargy and not white apathy. He's saying that he's making stuff up. He's making
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crap up. Actually, he said he's making S up. What is he making up? What? Okay, here's the question.
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Is the fatherless rate very high in the inner city or not? Yes or no? Answer is yes. Unless we're going
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to say 70% isn't very high. Another question. Are kids without fathers at a huge disadvantage?
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And do they lack essential male leadership and an essential male role model in their life?
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The answer is yes. Question. Do men who conceive children and then not stick around to raise them
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make that choice because of racism? Is it racism that prevents them from raising their own kids?
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Answer is no. So where is Buttigieg wrong? You know, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not a fan,
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like I said, of Buttigieg, but the truth is the truth. And this is a truth that we need to be able
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to talk about. And when it comes to the fatherless problem, by the way, it's not just a problem in the
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black community. It's a problem, and I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but if you're
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talking about, especially in the inner city, like I said, 70 or 80%, even in white neighborhoods,
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in the suburbs, it's not that high, but it's a lot higher than it should be. So this is a problem
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across the board in America. I would say this is a cultural problem shared across the board
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to one degree or another is a lack of male leadership in the home and a lack of the influence
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of fathers. Listen, every time or most of the times when we've had a school shooting, a mass shooting,
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this is one of the things that some of us talk about, that I talk about.
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And very often the kids who do that are white. But you know what else you find very often
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is that those kids didn't have dads in the home. Not in every case, but in many of them,
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in most of them. So obviously we need to talk about that.
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And to insist that we focus the conversation entirely around these sort of external environmental
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things, racism and all of that. And we make people the victim of their own choices. And
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when I say that, I'm not referring to the kids in the inner city who grew up without a dad.
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They're not a victim of their own choice. They're a victim of the choice their father made.
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And when you read articles like this, it sounds like we're trying to take those fathers who
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abandoned their children and make those fathers victims of their own choice of abandoning their
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families. And that's just, that's just wrong. Now, politically, this shows why the Democrats,
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I think, might be doomed. They're tearing their most talented candidates apart.
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Nobody's allowed to rise to the top of the pack without being ripped to shreds.
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The SJWs have this purity test that nobody can pass. Even a young gay man like Buttigieg can't pass it.
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Kamala Harris, a black woman, can't pass it. Elizabeth Warren, a female socialist, can't pass it.
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Who can pass it? Nobody can pass it. So they all get eaten alive by their own people. And Trump just
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sits back and enjoys the show. So it's working out for really well for Trump. I agree with what
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Tucker Carlson said, I think last night, where he said that he still wouldn't count Michelle Obama out.
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And I think that that is their only hope. And I wouldn't count her out either. I think Michelle
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Obama on the left is basically untouchable or the closest thing to untouchable among leftists that you
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can get. Probably the one person in the whole country who could unite all of these disparate
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warring factions on the left. You're not going to see any Michelle Obama is a lying MF articles about
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her. That's that level of disrespect and that kind of attack is reserved for people like Buttigieg.
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You're not going to see that Michelle Obama. There's a reverence that they all, all the leftists
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seem to have for her. She also has some appeal in the middle as well. So I think she'd be a
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formidable general election candidate. I think that's maybe their only hope right now.
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I just don't see anyone else. Obviously, someone's getting nominated among the Democrats, but
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they're all going to come into the general election extremely wounded after all of the slings and
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arrows they've taken from their own side. And that works again to Trump's advantage. Okay. Speaking of
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people getting attacked for speaking basic facts, I have another example of that that I want to share.
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promo code Walsh. Okay, so as I said, speaking of the left's war on facts, journalist Andy Ngo,
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he's best known for his run-ins with Antifa. He's the guy that got assaulted, sent to the hospital
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with a brain injury by Antifa a few months ago. Something that, by the way, Democrat candidates
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still have not condemned. That's a real attack on the press, on a journalist. Hasn't been condemned.
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Media didn't condemn it. Democrats didn't condemn it. Well, he is now suspended by Twitter for relaying
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an objective fact and relaying it in an objective and dispassionate way.
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He shared some verifiable statistical information, and for that he was banned.
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Now, it started with a tweet from Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea Clinton tweeted,
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since 2013, more than 150 trans people have been murdered in the U.S., the majority black
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transgender women. On TDOR 2019, I guess that's the Trans Day of Remembrance, they call it,
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we remember and honor the lives lost, hold their loved ones in our hearts, and must commit to doing
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all we can to end this epidemic of violence and hate. Now, Clinton is connecting this with hate,
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obviously insinuating, claiming that these are all or mostly hate crimes. Throwing in the black
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transgender woman detail, mentioning the race, also tries to turn it racial. So the idea is to
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make it seem like there are a bunch of racist transphobes out there murdering black, quote,
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trans women left and right. Now, Andy Ngo responded saying, and this is what got him banned, or at least
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suspended, the U.S. is one of the safest countries for trans people. The murder rate of trans victims is
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actually lower than that for the cis population. Also, who is behind the murders? Mostly black men.
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That's it. That's what he said. Got suspended for that. Suspended for responding to an inaccurate claim
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with some verifiable empirical facts. So what Twitter is saying is, we support this false narrative,
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and if you try to debunk it, we're going to punish you. You're not allowed to debunk it. It doesn't
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matter if it's not true. This is what we're going with. But the fact remains. They could suspend you
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for saying it, but the fact is a fact. As I talked about a few weeks ago, sharing a piece from Chad
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Felix Green over at The Federalist, the anti-trans hate crime epidemic is a fiction. It is a myth.
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It's been made up. It's invented. It's not real. The vast majority of trans murder victims
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are not the victims of a hate crime. The vast majority of trans murders have nothing at all to
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do with bigotry or anything like that. They've mostly been the kinds of murders that you find
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murdered in the non-trans population. Murdered in the same kinds of circumstances for the same
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reasons. It's sad. It's terrible. But it's not a hate crime. Also, a sizable number of murder
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victims among trans people are people who live a high-risk lifestyle. So prostitutes and that sort
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of thing. The murder rate among prostitutes generally, trans or not, is higher than the average
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population. But that's not because of anti-prostitute hate crimes. That's because you're
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living a high-risk lifestyle. You're living in a world where, in a dangerous world, you're dealing
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with dangerous people. You're doing a dangerous thing. That's not victim blaming. That's not saying
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they deserve it, obviously, because nobody does. It's just pointing out that there's no connection here
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with racism and hatred. What's driving this is something completely separate from that.
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Now, it may be hate anyway, but it's not... Maybe you can make the argument that anytime somebody is
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killed, there's hatred behind it, which I think is actually probably not true. I think more...
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Very often, I think what lies behind murders and other crimes is a sort of indifference to human life
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less than a hatred for human life, but either way. And that's just a fact.
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That's all. None of this is to say that the murder rate among trans people or black people or any group
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doesn't matter. Actually, I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying, let's deal with what's actually happening.
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Let's deal with the reality, because only if we deal with the reality is there a chance of
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making a difference. It's the people who use murder victims like political props who obviously lack
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empathy and lack compassion. When you're doing that, when you're taking trans people who've been
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murdered and you're turning them into a political weapon to bludgeon your opponents with, then you're
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And we're not going to be able to solve the problem. Call it an epidemic if you want. It's
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not really, but whatever you want to call it, we're not going to be able to solve the problem
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if we insist on diagnosing it incorrectly. It's a very basic thing. If you want to solve a problem,
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whether we're talking a societal problem or a medical problem or any kind of problem,
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you have to diagnose it correctly to begin with.
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And so I think what Andy Ngo was trying to say, what I'm saying, what a lot of us have been saying
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is, let's diagnose this problem correctly, and then we can talk about solving.
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But Twitter says, no, it's better to diagnose it incorrectly. In fact, we insist that you do.
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All right, let's move on to emails because there's a few topics brought up in the emails that I wanted
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to spend a little bit of time on. MattWallShow at gmail.com. MattWallShow at gmail.com. This is
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from Jake. Says, hey, Matt, quick talking point for tomorrow's show. As I am sure you saw, Bezos
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donated $98.5 million to charity, Jeff Bezos, and that still was not enough. I saw some comments
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going around that if you make $50,000, that would be the equivalent of donating $45.
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My point is, I doubt all the people complaining have ever donated that $45 to any cause.
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It is easy to virtue signal and demand more social programs when it is someone else's hard-earned
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money. Big fan of the show. Keep up the good work and God bless. Yeah, Jake, I saw that.
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Bezos donated, as you said, $98 million, and people were attacking him for it, which is
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amazing. And if you want to diagnose this problem, I really think a lot of it is garden
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variety jealousy. That's what a lot of it is. People clinging desperately to their narrative
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of the greedy rich person. To have a rich person who also acts generously interferes with the
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narrative, and so they find a way to dismiss it. And it's also, I think, that people are upset
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that they themselves are not billionaires. And they look at Jeff Bezos, and their main problem
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with Jeff Bezos is that they are not Jeff Bezos. They want to be him. That's what you have to
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understand. All this attacking of billionaires. Most of the people doing the attacking, their main
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issue with billionaires is that they themselves are not billionaires. That's what they don't like
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about billionaires, is that they're not in that population. So I think, and this is unfortunately
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human nature. A lot of people do that. We all do this in some way or another, to some degree or another,
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where, you know, you see someone who's got something you want, and their life seems to be
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working for them well. And you feel jealous, you're envious. And so you want to tell yourself
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that there's something wrong with them. And that's what people do. I think a lot of these socialists
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and everything, these would-be, faux socialists, they look at rich people, and really in their heart,
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they want to be rich, but they're not. And so instead they tell themselves, oh, well, you know,
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these are all a bunch of greedy, these are all a bunch of greedy bastards. And, you know,
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at least I'm not like that. At least I'm a better person. They might have more money than me,
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but I'm a better, more virtuous person. And then when you see that the billionaire isn't greedy,
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and they're donating a lot of money and doing a lot of good in the community,
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now they're thinking, wait a second, is this person richer than me and better?
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That can't be. They can't be richer and more generous. I can't allow that to be the case.
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And I agree with you. All these people saying, oh, Bezos giving $98 million is like me giving 50.
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Well, first of all, no, it isn't. Because I'm pretty sure the charity would prefer the 98 million
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to the 50. Okay. It makes a difference to them. There are practical things that $98 million can do
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that $50 cannot. Now, if all you have to give is 50 and you give the 50, it's like the parable that
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Jesus told the woman that just gave, you know, put two coins into the, you know, at the synagogue
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rather than the rich people that made a show of giving more. So yes, in terms of the moral act
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itself, the moral significance, if you give less and that's all you can give, that's a great thing.
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And it does make a difference, but it obviously, practically speaking, $98 million, that's going
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to help a lot of hungry and homeless people. Whereas $50 will help a lot less. So in a practical
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sense, it's not as good. But also I agree with you in that all these people saying, well, it's like
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if I gave 50. Are you giving 50 though? If you are, great, but I kind of doubt that you are.
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These people complaining about rich people all the time and greedy and everything.
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Every time they see philanthropy among rich people, they find a way of dismissing it.
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All these people that say, oh, you know, I, that's not as generous as I can be. Well,
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are you generous? Are you actually giving your money to charity? I tend to doubt it. I think
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a lot of these people are, are hoarding their own money. And that's what really gets them
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is that they know in their hearts that even though they're a lot poorer than someone like
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Jeff Bezos, than a billionaire, they have a lot less money. They're actually more greedy
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because that's the thing. If you're making, you know, $70,000 a year or something and you give
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none of it to charity and you don't help anybody with it. Um, and meanwhile, you've got a billionaire
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giving millions. The billionaire is more generous than you. And yeah, you could say he's got more
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money to spend, but you're giving nothing. You're not doing anything. I mean, you could spare some of
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that. I mean, 70,000 is not 70 billion, but it's, it's, there's still, you still have some room,
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like maybe a few of the coffees you buy at Starbucks. Maybe, maybe you don't get that iPhone
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upgrade. You know, maybe you already have Netflix. You don't need Amazon too. You could sacrifice some
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of that and give to the less fortunate, but you don't because you're actually more materialistic and
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greedier than some of those rich people. And I think that's what really gets them. They hate to think
00:26:06.820
that. Oh my gosh. Am I, am I not only broke, but greedy too? No, nobody wants to think that
00:26:15.380
about themselves. All right. Um, that's one thing I've, I've talked about before you see
00:26:23.720
in our culture and our consumeristic culture, uh, consumeristic isn't really a word, but let's go
00:26:31.700
with it. What you find is that even people who are not rich, like me and you, assuming you're not
00:26:40.380
rich, who's ever watching this, a lot of us have sort of inherited the vices of the rich
00:26:46.560
because living in this consumerist culture, even people who aren't rich can tend to be materialistic,
00:26:55.360
greedy, just hoarding goods and things for themselves. And so a lot of us, we have the
00:27:03.140
vices of the rich. We have the greed and the materialism, but we don't actually have the riches
00:27:07.300
of the rich. And so we've got the worst of all the worlds. Okay. This is from Marie says, I'm a young
00:27:14.440
mom of two little toddlers and my two and a half year old is really pumped for Santa to come this
00:27:18.700
year. I've told her the true meaning of Christmas and I basically made Santa a helper for Jesus.
00:27:22.900
Emphasis on helper. So she'll still get the point. I've never thought of not giving her the fantasy
00:27:27.820
of Santa until talking with a friend recently. The friend said that her parents made Santa very real
00:27:32.480
with noises on the roof, jingle bells and everything. So when she found out that all that hope and joyful
00:27:37.620
anticipation was complete nonsense, she was devastated. She still is devastated and refuses
00:27:41.620
to tell her kids about Santa. I've had a few friends experience something similar. It makes me sad.
00:27:46.660
What have you done for your kids? Are you ever worried about the day that they inevitably discover
00:27:50.340
the fantasy of Santa Claus? I'm at a crossroads of what to do because both pose their pros and cons.
00:27:55.060
I'd love your opinion. You're a great dad. Thank you for all your talk, for all you talk about. I'm
00:27:59.740
so disappointed in the sexualized obsession of the young in our culture. Never stop speaking. You make
00:28:03.460
such a difference. God bless you and your family. Yeah, Marie, first of all, I would say about your
00:28:09.460
friend, it seems like their parents went way overboard, but if she's still devastated that Santa Claus isn't
00:28:16.160
real, it might be time for her to get over that one. You know, we all went through that as kids and
00:28:21.080
it was a little difficult at first, but probably by the time you're an adult, you should be over it.
00:28:25.840
I don't know. I know maybe you can't say that to her. Maybe you should just say it to her. Just put it
00:28:30.440
flat out. Next time she's complaining about the fact that Santa Claus doesn't exist, maybe say to her,
00:28:35.420
listen, you know that you're like 30, right? But in terms of what to tell your kids,
00:28:46.160
And I've, I've brought this point up many times before when talking about gender issues and kids
00:28:50.740
choosing their own gender and everything. My point is that very young kids, you say you're toddlers.
00:28:56.760
Okay. Two and a half years old. Well, a two and a half year old has no idea what reality is.
00:29:03.340
It has no concept of reality. Doesn't know the difference between fiction and truth and fiction.
00:29:09.640
So if you were to say to your two and a half year old, Santa Claus is not real.
00:29:19.140
So my point is you couldn't convince a two and a half year old that there is no such thing as Santa
00:29:25.120
Claus because a phrase like there's no such thing as just doesn't mean anything for them. They don't
00:29:30.220
have the cognitive ability to understand that. And so that's why children naturally live in a fantasy
00:29:39.400
world. Um, you're two and a half year old. If you have a three-year-old, a four-year-old,
00:29:44.140
they also probably think that Spider-Man exists and Superman exists and they watch Bugs Bunny.
00:29:48.820
You know, they think that that's real. They watch cartoons. They think it's real. It's not because
00:29:52.040
you've told them that you haven't gone out of your way to convince. Nobody goes out of their way
00:29:56.060
really to convince a four-year-old that Spider-Man exists. But if they see Spider-Man on TV, if they watch a
00:30:01.580
movie, they're going to think that's real because the whole idea that you could be watching something
00:30:08.500
in image, but it's not real. It just, that's, there's a disconnect there because they think,
00:30:14.440
well, what do you mean? It's not real. I can see it. Of course it's real.
00:30:16.360
So I wouldn't worry about it. I guess is what I'm saying. If your kids are young enough where
00:30:24.980
believing in Santa is appropriate, then they're also so young that you couldn't convince them
00:30:31.520
anyway that Santa Claus isn't real. So you might as well just go with it. And as they get older and
00:30:37.580
they're capable of understanding that there is this thing, that there is reality, which is set apart in
00:30:45.400
some way from fantasy. As they get older, when they get to be, you know, five, six, seven, they start to
00:30:50.520
understand that. Then they're getting to the age maybe where I think you break the news. But also, they're
00:30:59.860
also getting to the age where they're going to, they're going to start figuring that out anyway. In fact, for
00:31:04.660
me with Santa Claus, I actually, I actually did not have the devastating moment where my parents sat me down
00:31:11.240
and gave me the bad news. I kind of just figured it out on, on my own because I had older siblings and
00:31:18.840
they had stopped believing. And so just over time, you're just kind of like, oh, okay, hold on a second.
00:31:23.320
And you start piecing it together. So if you told, if you told your kid, if you told your kid nothing at
00:31:29.620
all about Santa Claus, you didn't, you didn't say real or fake or anything. You just didn't say anything
00:31:35.240
about it. I think your child at a young age would naturally believe in Santa Claus because he would
00:31:41.380
pick it up from his friends and from the culture and from TV and everything. And then, you know,
00:31:45.560
around six, seven, eight would stop believing. And that would happen apart from you completely.
00:31:51.820
So all you're doing as a parent is maybe hurrying it along a little bit or, you know, kind of guiding
00:31:56.660
them one way or another a little bit. But kids are going to live in that fantasy world. And there's also
00:32:01.820
nothing wrong with that. So if you, if you would not, I say, we don't, we don't go out of our way
00:32:08.880
to convince our kids that Spider-Man is real yet. They do believe that Spider-Man is real. Would you,
00:32:15.240
would you sit them down and go out of your way to convince them that Spider-Man isn't real?
00:32:20.720
Would anyone, would any parent do that? Why? Your daughter believes that there are fairies in the
00:32:25.580
garden. Are you going to sit her down and say, listen, there are no fairies. Stop believing in fairies.
00:32:30.400
What kind of crazy parent would do that? No, she believes it. Just let her believe it.
00:32:35.560
Now. Yeah. You play along a little bit and cause it's fun and she's a kid. She's just, who cares?
00:32:43.900
Zach says, dear Matt, since the Christmas season essentially starts on Friday,
00:32:48.200
please rate the following five gifts from one to five, five being the worst.
00:32:52.880
Socks, a worn slash used item. That's clearly been re-gifted. Scratch off lottery tickets,
00:32:59.480
a Christmas ornament or a clothing item that is clearly two sizes too small and comes with a gift
00:33:04.540
receipt. Thanks for all you do and watch the show religiously. Well, I need more information,
00:33:08.980
Zach, because you talk about socks. Are the socks, the fancy high-end socks that you buy,
00:33:13.480
you get a pair of them for 14 bucks at Target. That for me is fancy and high-end.
00:33:18.700
That's not a bad gift. I have no problem with re-gifted items in principle. Now, if you're saying
00:33:23.720
they've been worn or obviously used, okay, if someone's giving me a blender that still has chunks of
00:33:27.980
smoothie in it, I'm going to have an issue with that. But re-gifted in general, I have no problem
00:33:32.940
with. Now, you talk about ornaments. Okay, that's definitely a five. That's a 20, really.
00:33:39.720
If five is the worst, then 20, it's a 20. It's off the scales bad. Ornaments are the worst gifts.
00:33:47.820
We've all been guilty of giving Christmas ornaments as gifts to other people, yet we all know
00:33:54.040
that none of us want Christmas ornaments as gifts. So we all participate in this thing where
00:33:59.000
we give a gift that we know we wouldn't want. You know, Jesus says, do unto others as you would
00:34:06.200
have them do unto you. Well, give gifts that you would want also in some world. Nobody wants a
00:34:12.080
Christmas ornament. You get this little thing, a little ball or whatever that you hang on a tree
00:34:18.200
for a few weeks along with all the other ornaments. It just gets lost in the shuffle. Who's going to be
00:34:23.680
excited about that? And the worst thing is, and this is why gift giving stresses me out, and I would
00:34:29.060
be in favor of just abolishing all gift giving occasions and just never giving or receiving any
00:34:34.320
gifts. I'd be fine with that. What stresses me out is you're sitting there on Christmas morning and
00:34:38.160
you're doing your family gift unwrapping thing and you get a gift like an ornament and it's
00:34:44.240
obviously super lame and you don't care about it, but you have to act excited because the person who
00:34:50.400
gave it to you is sitting right there. Even though they know, unless it's a child, okay, that's an
00:34:55.820
exception here. But if it's an adult, they know that you're not going to be super psyched about the
00:34:59.700
ornament, but they still expect you to act like you are and they know you're faking it. And so there's
00:35:05.640
this, the psychological back and forth, the mind games that are being played. I don't like it.
00:35:13.000
And I'm very bad at faking enthusiasm. So I open up the ornament and I have to go, oh, cool. That's
00:35:21.440
the best I can do. Oh, cool. Is that an ornament? You got an ornament? Yeah. Oh yeah, this'll look
00:35:26.160
great on the tree. This'll look great with the 300 other ornaments. I'll just put that in there and
00:35:30.100
I'll forget about it. It's great. No, thank you so much. Wow. Wow. Where'd you get this? Where'd you?
00:35:34.920
You have to ask a few questions, right? That's the one way I sell it. To try to distract from the
00:35:39.320
fact that I'm not excited, I'll start asking questions. Where'd you get this from? Oh, you got
00:35:42.880
it from the mall. Wow. What mall? Oh, wow. Wow. Look at this ornament. Oh my gosh. I woke up this
00:35:52.300
morning just hoping I'd get an ornament. I got 600 ornaments. I was thinking I need another one. I mean,
00:35:57.580
I need a 601 ornament. So thank you so much for this ornament. Thank you so much for it.
00:36:04.920
You obviously hate me. Could give me a gift that I want. How about just a gift card? You wanted to
00:36:11.900
spend seven bucks on a gift. So just get a $7 gift card to Starbucks. Okay. That'd be much better.
00:36:18.540
I got to actually use that. That's my reaction. It's Christmas morning. It's awkward at my house.
00:36:29.420
Anyway, that's my feeling about that. Thanks for the question. I think we'll wrap it up there.
00:36:37.800
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